As part of the 2022 Action Week concerning atrial fibrillation, Why Doctor offers you the testimony of a patient treated by surgery.
- Atrial fibrillation, heart rhythm disorder, would affect more than 750,000 people in France
- If the anti-coagulant or anti-arrhythmic treatments do not work, it is necessary to resort to an intervention called “ablation” of the atrial fibrillation.
“For me, the arrhythmia was something insignificant, it was part of the normal functioning of the heart.“Frédéric, 71, took time to listen to his heart and his body. A fan of running, he recognizes today that the first signs of heart rhythm disorder, he had felt them when he had… 15 years!
Atrial fibrillation: a risk of stroke
A more frequent case than one imagines: atrial fibrillation, or auricular, is a depolarization of cells in the auricle which desynchronizes the contraction of the cardiac fibers, is what is called a “silent” disease, it that is to say whose symptoms are neither spectacular nor easily identifiable. But when it comes to the heart, any malfunction can be serious. And if “AF” is not, in itself, a serious disease, it can have consequences which they are. And the most formidable of these serious effects is stroke since the irregularity of the heartbeat prevents the atrium from sending blood to the ventricle, which causes the formation of clots.
And the stroke is precisely what happened to Frédéric. In 2013, following serious professional concerns, he ended up in intensive care. And despite anticoagulant treatment following this stroke, six months later, the atrial fibrillation returned: “I have a sports heart, but there it started beating at 150“, he says. So the doctors have to prescribe him an antiarrhythmic treatment. But since his heart, naturally, beats rather slowly and this medicine has the effect of slowing down the heart rate even more, the way of the operation is impose quickly.
Disturbance of heart rhythm: treatment by ablation
In 2019, Frédéric underwent what is called an ablation of atrial fibrillation and which consists in fact – even if the word ‘ablation’ makes one think of the removal of an organ – of inactivating the cells responsible for the depolarization which disturbs the heartbeat, in his case with a technique called cryoablation, ie by inactivating these cells with extreme cold. It is an intervention by venous route.
“Since the operation, I live normally, I don’t even pay attention to my heart anymore, everything is going very well, I continue to run and ride mountain bikes“, rejoices Frédéric who speaks of the ablation of his atrial fibrillation as an intervention”almost banal“. But who has learned the lessons of his journey: “You can be sporty, still think you’re young… but you should never ignore the little signs!“
Below, the testimony of Frédéric, 71 years old:
See our Q&A program on atrial fibrillation:
